The present invention relates to a new and distinct Hosta plant, Hosta ‘Blue Elf’ hereinafter also referred to as the new plant or by the cultivar name, ‘Blue Elf’. Hosta ‘Blue Elf’ was a cross by the inventor between ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ (not patented) as the female parent and ‘Osiris Obscur’ (not patented) as the male parent at a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Mich., USA during the summer of 2011. The new plant was assigned the breeder code 11-66-01 and passed the initial evaluation in the summer of 2015 and has been asexually propagated by division at the same nursery since 2015 and also by careful shoot tip plant tissue culture with the resultant asexually propagated plants having retained all the same traits as the original plant. Hosta ‘Blue Elf’ is stable and reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.
Hosta ‘Blue Elf’ has not been made publically available until it was listed for sale Jul. 10, 2017. Any public disclosure of ‘Blue Elf’ has been by the inventor, or one who obtained the material either directly or indirectly from the inventor, and any such disclosure has not been made more than one year prior to the application of this invention.
There are nearly 6,000 registered Hostas with The American Hosta Society, which is the International Cultivar Registration Authority for the genus Hosta, and a similar or larger number of unregistered cultivars. Several of these have small leaf blades with slightly auriculate leaf bases and stiff, thick leaf substance. The most similar Hosta cultivar known to the applicant is the female parent Hosta ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ (not patented). The male parent ‘Osiris Obscur’ has much larger habit and foliage than the new plant, and also has more rugose leaf surface with less glaucous covering. ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ is smaller in habit and in leaf blade and has less glaucous covering over the leaf blade and does not possess the slight reddish purple stippling of the petiole that the new plant has. ‘Flamenco Mouse’ (not patented) is smaller in habit, with less glaucous leaf blades, and the leaf blades also have a sinuate wave rather than the flatter leaves of the new plant. ‘Small World’ (not patented) is another small-leafed Hosta that has deep green leaf blades and more narrow acute apex compared with the blue-green leaf blade broadly acute leaf apices of the new plant. ‘Bill Dress's Blue’ (not patented) has similar foliage color and shape, but the substance on the new plant is thicker, the flower scape is shorter and flowers of a brilliant violet hue with white stripes. Hosta ‘Blue Ice’ (not patented) is slower growing, has more glaucous foliage with slightly taller flower scape and light lavender flowers. Hosta ‘Blue Moon’ (not patented) is larger in habit and leaf, and the flower scape is taller, with more flowers that have a light lavender color.
Other Hosta cultivars may have small leaf blades with slightly auriculate leaf bases and stiff, thick leaf substance or other individual traits similar to ‘Blue Elf’ but the new plant differs from the above listed cultivars and all other Hostas known to the applicant, by the combination of the following traits.                1. Leaves are rounded, with a glaucous blue-green surface.        2. Foliage color emerges light blue-green and holds onto the blue-green color well nearly the entire season.        3. Underside of leaf near white with heavy glaucous covering.        4. Compact habit and useful in the miniature garden, as edging or front border, in containers, as a specimen or en masse.        5. Flowers are striped with brilliant violet spots with contrasting white stripes between and densely arranged just above foliage.        